New Zealand cycle racing history

Here are a couple of articles which I wrote for Endurance magazine last year.
I don't have the first part of the series, detailing the first New Zealand Six Day Tour in 1953, but will try and locate it soon.

A big thanks to my friend, and riding buddy, Max Parks who did the lay up.
Of course the people at the printers had to screw around with our layup, and completely ruin our beautiful work, so here they are as we intended.

Sorry if they are a little small to read easily, it was the best I could do.

Gordon Dally's Dulux Six Day Race tool box

I tracked down former Dulux six day race mechanic Gordon Dally(about 1967-76) up in the Bay of Islands about three months ago. After chatting on the phone for a while about his memory's of the race and riders, he mentioned that he still had his original tool kit!

I told him about my Book project and exhibit of cycle racing memorabilia that I display at various Museums and events, and he kindly donated this very cool tool kit.
So I jumped into the car and drove the nine hour drive up to his place the next week.
As can be seen in the first photo, Gordon made this ingenious wheel truing stand that bolts to the top of the tool box when needed.

As I was about to leave Gordon's after a nice cuppa and cake, Gordon ask's me to hang on a minute and came back with his Dulux Race Mechanic's track suit, which was made especially for him by Bob Pratt at Pex sports wear, who were making all the Dulux cycle jerseys at the time.
I was more than happy, with this jacket I could now make a really engaging exhibit, all I need to find now is a photo of him on the race.
This should look really good in Wolves of the road book as well

I will bring this over to the Taupo Challage in November this year if I end up putting the exhibit on there again.

Detail of track suit front patch

Wolves of the road book

Wolves of the road
The Wisemans and Dulux six day tours 1953-1985
the book project
About 18 months ago I sold my screen printing business and decided to write a book on the New Zealand Wiseman's and Dulux six day cycle tours 1953-1985, this is the story so far....

These races were New Zealands own Tour de France, and were the proving grounds for pretty much all of our top road men over this period,and as such should be, in my opinion, documented in a beautiful book.

As far as I could see, that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

So I decided to write the book that I wanted to read.

The first thing that I did was to introduce myself to Neil Robinson, Neil (Robbie) had won the Dulux Tour in 1964. He was also the first rider to take the purple King of the Mountains and Maillot Jaune jerseys in the same year, during the Dulux years.

Fortunately he only lived three hours away in Gisbourne.
I drove up,and armed with a tiny tape recorder and plenty of enthusiasm, I proceeded to conduct my first interview for the book.
Robbie turned out to be the nicest guy one could meet, and also had a excellent memory, great scrap books (something which I have come to love), and all his old jerseys (something else I have come to love),but wait there's more...a couple of his old bikes (something I already loved!).

It was in hindsight the perfect interview, Robbie had all the things that I needed to make this book match what was in my minds eye, cool woolen jerseys,good information, great photos and most of all great stories.
The 1964 year was in the bag!

I realized at about this point, that to make this book work I would need to make sure that enough of the memorabilia, photos and riders were still around to fill a book with the stories and accompanying images needed to fill the tomb I had in mind.
So the next mission was to start tracking down as many of the earliest riders as I could and start piecing together the history, stories, memorabilia etc.
I am still in this process, but I now know there is enough history surviving to finish the project.

I have also put together a sample of the book using a bookbinder (featured below) with about 30 pages actually printed (the rest blank) to show prospective publishers the look and size, about 350 pages, that I have in mind.

This part was done with designer Fane Flaws and photographer Brian Culy.

Book Sample

Tino Taback on the attack Front piece, Brain 'Happy" Howlett winning last stage at Western Springs, Auckland
Wisemans six day tour 1954Spread page for the 1964 year1964 year with Neil Robinson and his purple King of the Mountains jersey.
As you can see every one of the six days is covered every year, giving the reader a first hand account of all the action and drama that took place.

This is why I am spending so much time, travelling and talking to as many of the riders involved as I can find, to get behind the headlines and find out the real stories, and believe me, there are some beauties.

A section on Hills Cycle Works.
There will be sections throughout the book that will cover the main New Zealand cycle shops, period magazines, cycle clothing manufactures, in fact anyone or anything that played a significant part in this wonderful history.

Wolves of the road

Starters page,every year all starters are listed, this way all riders who rode the Tour will get their name in the book, even if they don't get into the main text.
This page will also include results of top eight places and top three King of the Mountains riders.

Bio page, all Tour winners will get a short biography of their cycle racing careers. If they win twice I get to choose another of our great riders who maybe didn't win or didn't ride the Tour, and do a bio on them.

I have got a couple in riders mind already, any ideas on who you think would deserve their own bio?

There will be section's on the important road bikes used in New Zealand. In this section shown on Legnano, the road bike featured was Ritchie Thompson's ( Dulux 2nd three times, 3rd twice, New Zealand's Poulidor? )
I restored this one from a bit of a wreck, it was given to me by Neil Robinson (cheers Robbie).
The track bike was loaned by Ron Cheatly (cheers Ron)

Ritchie Thompson riding the Dulux day tour on a Legnano

The bike sections will have the manufactures histories along with their connection to the New Zealand scene.
I will feature Claud Butler, Frejus, Holdsworth,Bertin,TI Raleigh, RIH, Colanago, and of course a few New Zealand builders, I am hoping to use as many bikes that were actually used on the Tour as possible, so let me know if you know where any are.

I am really looking forward to restoring the bikes ( if they need it) when I find them, and then writing/photographing these sections.

So anyone with any relevant information on the race, riders,photos or bikes from this period etc please don't hesitate to contact me.
And especially any riders/photos/bikes from the 1953-1957 Wisemans era.